In the simplest form, business owners that seek to restrict access to facilities or worksites usually employ a locked door or gate and provide a limited number of keys to authorized individuals to allow ingress/egress. Such a system becomes unwieldy in the tracking of keys and authorized individuals if more than about three authorized individuals are given keys. In other situations, business owners may employ a guard stationed at the locked door or gate to interrogate an individual to determine if entry is authorized. Interrogation by a guard can be as simple as visual observation of a badge or more complex such as comparing the responses of an individual to a user defined list of authorized responses. The amount of time taken to observe badges or interrogate/compare responses of an individual can have an adverse impact upon production, especially when a number of individuals are at the locked door/gate seeking access to the facility, worksite or a portion thereof. Personal identification number (PIN) pads, bar coding, and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology overcome the problems with duplicative keys and interrogation/comparison systems but each rely upon preauthorization of the individual. For example, an employer will not configure and issue a badge or PIN unless the employee meets the training requirements and/or qualifications of an employer, general contractor or regulatory agency. Thereafter, the badge and/or PIN represents authorization to pass through a locked door or gate even if there is a lapse in the employee's training or qualifications. In short, the badge represents a “snapshot” of authorization that becomes less reliable with the passage of time.
Furthermore, a business entity which owns a facility or worksite (“property owner”) will require other business entities in the role of contractor, subcontractor or vendor will require such entities to meet: (1) relevant federal and state regulations; (2) the property owner's policies regarding health, safety, environment and employment; (3) recommended guide lines of non-governmental organizations; (4) contractual requirements; (5) insurance requirements or a combination thereof (“hereinafter Worksite Requirements”). In turn, employees, independent contractors, and consultants of a contractor, sub-contractor or vendor will be required to meet or satisfy Worksite Requirements that are applicable to individuals. Typically Worksite Requirements are set forth in the terms of an employment agreement, contract or master service agreement. However, implementation and verification of compliance with Worksite Requirements is a daunting task given the number of requirements, length of work to be performed at a worksite, number of individuals at a worksite and the mobility of workers between employers. Failure to implement or verify compliance may result in personal injury, death, property damage, interruption of business, penalties, fines or a combination thereof.
Attempts have been made to solve these problems. The most rudimentary solution being a shift, by policy or contract, the burden of complying with Worksite Requirements to individual departments within a company or the company's contractors/vendors. However, shifting the burden of compliance does not necessarily mean that compliance will occur. And even if company policy or contractual terms require verification of compliance—such verification is typically a cursory review of a variety of documents from a wide variety of sources.
While some have attempted to automate the process of verification and compliance, the frequency is usually once or twice during the duration of a contract or on a yearly basis. Yet, none provide a guard or “gatekeeper” at a worksite to allow or prohibit individuals from entering a worksite based upon Worksite Requirements. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,776 invented by Donnelly discloses a human resource management system for staffing projects with various workers. While the Donnelly's system does provide some record keeping and tracking—it is a very limited system that does not provide a gatekeeper to allow or prevent access to a facility/worksite based upon Worksite Requirements. Nor does the Donnelly system provide a means to control a worker's access to a worksite (or a portion thereof) based on the worker's relationship to a contractor, sub-contractor, vendor or a combination thereof. The same is true for the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,660,876, invented by Woodings et al. Furthermore, these systems are “snapshot” systems only capable of generating a condition or status report based on data and queries entered into the system only once or twice a year. The disclosed system in one embodiment, efficiently and quickly interrogates and compares the records about the individual, and his/her employer against the requirements of the facility or worksite at the time of presentment of a personal token to signal access and unlock the door or gate or signal denial of access. In short, the present invention, among other aspects, shifts and transforms the verification and authorization from a “snapshot” pre-authorized access method and system (not unlike the key or PIN) to a real time verification and authorization method and system utilized in part at the threshold of a locking gate.